


Meeting in the Park

by love2imagine



Category: White Collar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-12
Updated: 2016-07-12
Packaged: 2018-07-23 14:03:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7466157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/love2imagine/pseuds/love2imagine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What might have happened between the time Peter met Moz and told him the Pink Panthers were all safely away, and the time Moz showed up at Peter and El's door the night after (note), just a little fill-in.</p><p> </p><p>Characters and set-up Jeff Eastins, I do not own them. Sadly. This story mine, mistakes mine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Meeting in the Park

 

 

Peter left the park, and Mozzie watched him go, a profound sadness pooling deep within him. He had visited their home infrequently. They had a lovely child and had called their son Neal…but, despite Mozzie’s sometimes surprisingly optimistic heart, this would be no Neal Caffrey! A sweet enough baby, but no replacement for any of them. He wished sincerely that they had called the boy something else – almost _anything_ else! It was a knife to his heart when Peter called, with the peremptory tone but with affection, too, “Neal!”

 

It was too exact an echo.

 

He and Peter had more in common than they ever had or thought to have, or indeed wished to have: a terrible loss that could not be assuaged. But each reminded the other of that very loss. El had dealt with it better, her mind so taken up with the birth of a surprise late lamb in the Burke household.

 

The news that the last of the Pink Panthers had been put away was nice, but changed little for Mozzie. He did not think they would come after him. Neal had been terrified that he was putting June and himself at risk, taking part in a sting to try and gain his freedom one last time. Whenever Mozzie thought about it, he had to fight a surge of resentment against the FBI for putting Neal in such a desperate position that he had been prepared to chance it all, but since he had, and had lost…Mozzie, usually as paranoid as anyone, had not cared much about the possible danger. Perhaps because, since Neal had gone ahead to whatever awaited them, he was not averse to following him there. The time would come that he would, despite any action taken or not taken: why wait?

 

Apart from his visits to Diana, who had been welcoming and caring through it all, and June, sympathetic and gracious as ever, his life seemed bleak indeed. He had always been a successful criminal; now he had the remaining treasure, for his use alone, and twenty-one million, which he had shared with June and she had set up a trust for her family and for Theo, since she had sources of funds that would not be challenged. He just couldn’t find the heart to even think of new heists or, worse, of finding a new protégé. He didn’t need to, and he didn’t much care. The three-card Monte was a distraction, a way to pass the time. A way to stop himself wallowing in the depression…he had always known how deeply he cared for Neal, how important that light-hearted, beautiful being had been to him, the only person whom he truly called a friend, an equal-but-different partner, though June and Diana, and rapidly growing Theo filled secondary roles.

 

He was about to abandon the park, Peter’s visit had sharpened the loneliness, when a young Asian man came up in front of him. Mozzie stared at him, lost and drowning for a moment in the past: the table, the Queen of Hearts, the tousled, blue eyed young Adonis taking his partner for five large, and the boy he had charged with following him…this lad looked like a grown – but no, no, a trick of the light, merely.

 

“I have something for you, I believe,” the young man said, his voice very quiet. “If you are the man who knows where the mockingbirds sing.”

 

Mozzie was surprised. Peter knew – and detested – his bird codes, and he had just left. The only person – Alex! He smiled a little. He hadn’t seen Alex, though he had sent anonymous word to her when Neal had been killed. They had been close, once.

 

He nodded. “I know about mockingbirds.”

 

“Then this is for you.” The young man handed him an envelope and left without waiting.

 

Mozzie wanted to hear from Alex. Perhaps she was here, in New York? Perhaps they could get together for a glass of wine? – but he was still Mozzie, and not to be taken in by so simple a ruse. He hurried away, took a circuitous route home to Thursday, making sure at every junction that he wasn’t being followed. It was one thing to choose to go and join Neal in the light – however blazing that light may turn out to be – but to have anyone else sign his boarding pass or even merely find out his secrets – no.

 

Wearing a gas-mask and using robotic arms through a clear unbreakable screen, he slit open the envelope and, with a regrettable amount of difficulty, he shook out a single piece of card. On it was an address and a number, that was all. The sensor alarms did not ring, there was no white powder. No powder of any sort, no dangerous chemicals, unless they were so obscure that his instruments had not been calibrated for them. He dropped the card and the envelope in a cast iron receptacle and torched them.

 

Muttering to himself – he was used to being the only person he could talk to who would understand, after all – about improving the smoothness of the robot’s movement, he first found a map and ascertained that, as he remembered, the address was at the edge of a warehouse district, nowhere he had ever visited.

 

 _Probably Alex,_  he thought. _Easy to make a good home there, not much passing traffic where the old factories and warehouses stand empty. Odd that she is being so secretive, but having heard about Neal…_ his thoughts jagged… _and the Pink Panthers, and she doesn’t yet know they are all incarcerated, all the local Chapter, anyway, so she is finally taking the sensible precautions. I always tried to teach her…these pretty people, they so often rely on their charm, and look where it gets them?_

 He made his way, still on the alert for tails and suspicious characters – and there are so many in a City the size of New York for a man as cautious as Mozzie! – to the address. It was a fenced area for the storage of containers. He smiled. He had lived in a container for a while. Neal had been affronted, but he had lived very well! There had been three containers, interconnected with hidden tunnels in which he could live quite comfortably for a week if anything dictated that danger was nigh. He grew nostalgic as he looked at the yard…but this was a little far for an easy walk from his usual haunts.

 

He waited till full dark, moving carefully around the whole area, and then he waited another two hours. If someone was following him, or trying to trick him, then that person was very clever, and very patient, and not showing up on Mozzie’s night-vision scope.

 

“Let’s see how careful you are, Alex – or whoever you are!”

 

Mozzie picked the lock on the gates in record time and pushed it so that it appeared locked, but would allow him an easy get-away if he was chased in this direction. He had already clipped the fence on the opposite side – a slit big enough to allow himself egress, but no-one larger. He felt reasonably safe.

 

He found the container with the correct number. He placed first his ear and then the amplified stethoscope to the side and listened. Nothing. No-one was even breathing inside.

 

He picked that lock, too, slid the heavy latch almost silently, opened the door slightly and peered in. He slipped inside. It wasn’t ideal, but he had reconnoitred the area thoroughly, and was a sure as he could be that no-one was about to trap him.

 

 _And if they do, I can go to be with Neal._  The thought reassured him and made him feel safe. He shone a flashlight around the small area. He only needed to do so once, he had an eidetic memory, but he did it several times. The beam started to shake, making the walls tremble and the photographs blur.

 

_He’s alive. He’salivehe’salivehe’salivehe’salivehe’salive!_

On the heels of, _You clever bastard!_  came the corollary _You utter **bastard!**_ But he was too delighted that he’d been right to be too furious or too indignant.

 

“I said you weren’t dead, you couldn’t be dead!” he exclaimed. “The Suit wouldn’t believe me! The Suit never believed me – but see, I was right! I was right!” He got a grip on his emotions and the flashlight and searched a little harder, and taped to the inside of the door there was an envelope similar to the one handed to him that had met a fiery end…as Neal, obviously, had not!

 

_Good thing, now I think about it. Because if we do end up in a hotter-than-tropical location, Keller would be there. I don’t like Keller. He killed – well, he **didn’t.** Neal killed **him!** Or set the Suit up to do so! I love you, Neal. I never told you, probably never will, not my style, but I do. _

Inside the envelope was a note.

 

**Sorry. Truly. But you never saw the P P, how ruthless and violent and heartless they were, cold and brutal. Kill for nothing, even if I was dead, for the joy of killing and as a message that no-one gets the better of the Panthers, they would have not merely assassinated you and J, but tortured you, too, if they were not in a hurry.**

**I am sorry I let you think I was dead. If you have received this, I am not, and the P Ps’ fangs have been pulled. Time will have passed, and I believe that, if you choose to find me, you can.**

**Of course, I have not been able to stay in contact; I can imagine several scenarios that may have unfolded. I do not know how P and E have handled what happened. I know P, with his deeply ingrained Catholic conscience, despite the fact he ignored his faith, will allow it to eat at him because he will feel that it was on his watch that – once again – I messed up, and in this case I died.**

**He and I did not have that closeness, not after that Flying Ghost Ship, but he deserved better, I think, than continuing to believe I am dead. I know you have always had your reservations about the man – and his profession – but I leave this to you. There is a boxed bottle on the floor beneath this. Give it to him, if you think he will merely find this place and know that I am alive and not come after me. He already has the key, I had it on me. I have no doubt that I will be indulging in some less-than-legitimate ways of making money – I tried the 9 to 5, (usually a lot more) and it has severe limitations! – so I would prefer he didn’t make E unhappy by leaving her. She understood me better than he did much of the time.**

**He may not make the connection. He may find this place and understand and find an element of peace. If not, I may send him word at some time in the future, when he is older and even less likely to follow.**

**I gave J many hints and clues and she is a very smart lady, but make sure she knows I survived, and tell her once more that I love her. I will see her again. I know she will not hold this against me.**

**If you do, I will not see you, and I don’t blame you. I saw you lying close to death twice and if I thought you had done it to trick me, I would have been furious, too. However, tell J where I am, and if you forgive me, I will see you soon.**

**I hope to do so, Moz. But if not, be well and happy.**

 

Mozzie wiped his eyes with his enormous handkerchief and sniffed. Then he looked about to see what had not been part of the death-con. There was a newspaper there, dated the day before Neal had…well, he hadn’t, but was supposedly killed…and in the left hand corner of the front page was a square display advert for a coffee-and-wine-house in Vienna, with a logo of a Tyrollean Austrian-style hat with pheasant feather stuck in the band, under the name of a travel agent: Tabernacle Travels. Mozzie smiled.

 

His heart full and his expectations for a hopeful future brimming, he left the container, locking it behind him. He would give the bottle – the clue – to Peter. Hopefully the Suit would remember that Kate had loved the classics. Peter and El deserved to know. He was going to enjoy everything – telling June, going to see little Neal one last time, and taking a carefully planned route through Durban and Sao Paolo, Perth and Rome to go to find his friend. Mozzie’s eyes were sparkling in the street-lights at the thoughts running through his mind and he was uncharacteristically humming.

 

However, he was still Mozzie. He went and bought a newspaper, which happily spoke of the Louvre, and left it in the container in the place of the one Neal had left for him.

 

Just because the world seems full of music and flowers, bubbles and light doesn’t mean one should stop taking reasonable precautions.

 

 

 

 

The End

****

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
